The Sensei Talks Rebirth

-Tell us about rebirth, Sensei.

-If you spend some time today, and I urge you to do so, investigating eye-consciousness, ear-consciousness, nose-consciousness, &c. you will discover clearly that no "I" or "mine" inheres in any of this. It's just a wide open energetic expanse in all directions. The Grand Dragon Sky-Going Nature of Zen! If there is no "I" in this now, how can there be an "I" in it in the past or future, which are just ideas and images? One's self-concept changes over life, does it not? What one loves changes. What one wants changes. Even what one believes changes. Everything changes faster than images in a dream. So how can there be a small "I" to get "reborn" anywhere or at any time? No, this so-called "shoga" or small "I" is just a bizarre and foolish imputation on the inherently realized and totally free Mind-nature. It's sustained by nothing but anxious, tortured thinking. Be direct. Drop it now! Wipe out your traces in empty space, and don't look back!

-So you say, Sensei, that there is no real chain of lives, no rebirth?

-When you look at the daytime sky it does not seem that there are any stars. Yet the light of all the stars is present there. It may be that everything, all the content of your past lives, if they ever existed, is present in the great "Now." But once grasping at a small "I" and "mine" is gone, there can be no more karma nor "rebirths," just the "wide open energetic clarity in all directions" that I mentioned earlier. "Here it is!" Note that eye-consciousness, ear-consciousness &c. when investigated deeply enough all turn out to elude labeling. "Consciousness" cannot with absolute confidence even be called consciousness as opposed to non-consciousness! "It is, it is, it is." But what is it really? Don't know! So here is a poem for you:

Pecking at the shell
of the Cosmic Egg --
a Golden Eagle.

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This is a little book of concise instructions for entering the non-dual state and experiencing the miraculous nature of life. It is a complete system for realizing the goal of Zen, for "entering the Gateless Gate." You can throw away all your other books on Enlightenment. Either this one works, or nothing will. “Put strength into it; abandon conceit.’ Just practice truly, with energy and resolve.

"At the Gateless Barrier"

At the Gateless Barrier, I play the old tunes on my bamboo flute./It's cold at night and everybody weeps to hear the ancient songs./Yet Zen is without sentiment.

I write. I do Zen. I play the bamboo flute.

"Great Nature, Great Manifestation, Great Realization." What does this mean? Every aspect of this life, which is Zen Enlightenment itself, is "great." Whether wonderful or terrifying or both it always "is" in a way that cannot be explained. Just try to explain it. Can you, or can't you?

It's just like when Master Ko Bong shouted "That's it! Ha, ha, ha, ha!" and broke his fan. Do you get it, or not? If you can tell me what you get, I'll bow to you. If you can't, I'll call you my Master. Either way, you win.

For more notes, poems and aphorisms: go here.See also 老虎: Lao Hu. Contact me at jyakunen(at)gmail.com.

SHIBUMI TEA ROOM

I've begun building a small tea room in the old style. Here, I plan to conduct the simplest and most ancient form of the Zen tea ceremony.

"Cool in summer, warm in winter; flowers from the field; prepare for rain; enjoy a sip of tea together."

This will be good place to sit and drink tea and listen to rain clattering on the roof. "After all there is no difficulty in tea, only enjoyment." (Kaji Aso)

Talk to the Moktak

There is nothing in the world bigger than the tip of an autumn hair, and Mount T'ai is little. No one has lived longer than a dead child, and P'eng-tsu died young. Heaven and earth were born at the same time I was, and the ten thousand things are one with me.-Master Chuang-Tzu